The Journey of a Thousand Promises
by Ziria NightRose
Summary: When a young Vulpix and Shandshrew meet, they vow to undo everything the rockets ever did to them. But first they need to train, gather an army, and find every Rocket base there is and destroy it.
1. Chapter 1 A mother's love

CHAPTER 1 (prologue) A Mother's Love

"_Mina! Come back here right this instant!" a middle aged Ninetails chased after me, tackled me, and then proceeded to tickle me. _

"_Mom, what are you doing?" I giggled; she was way too playful for a mom. Moms should be caring, and, well, motherly. My mom was defiantly not that._

It my have had something to do with the fact that my dad was captured when I was a baby. I didn't know much about him since my mom would turn away every time I would ask where he was, but when she would occasionally tell me about him, I could tell he loved us very much.

My mom would always play with me. Even when I could tell she had better things to do, she would make an effort to make me happy. That's why I loved her so much. It's times like those where I really miss the hugs she used to give me every night before I went to bed.

"_Sleep tight little one, and may you have the most pleasant of dreams."_

"_Good night mom," I would reply, as I crawled into my portion of the cave, curled up and fell into a deep sleep._

When I look back on those happy times in my life, it always brings tears to my eyes. If only I could have been stronger, if only I could see the scum who killed my mother one more time. If only she didn't die.

This was my oath. That one day, the evil men who killed my mom, captured my dad, and tore my life apart, would pay for what they did to me. That was my promise, and I always keep my promises.

**AN – I hope you liked the first chapter! This is my first fanfic, so I hope you aren't too harsh. (But advice is always welcome!), I don't have much to say, but PLEASE review it! I will always be open to new ideas and opinions about my story so don't be surprised if some of your thoughts and feelings about the story show up. Later on, I might ask for **_**your **_**OCs, so be ready, and don't forget to review.**


	2. Chapter 2 A mother's death

Chapter 2- A Mother's Death

I woke up to my mom prodding me in the side.

"Wha-", my mom covered my mouth with her paw, halfway through my "What", and pointed to the back of the cave.

"Be quiet and follow me" she whispered. As she pulled be towards the back entrance.

"What's going on?" I asked her, but she ignored me. A second later, she turned around; tears were swimming in her eyes. I probably should not have said that.

"It's the men who took your father" she replied; the tears now falling down her face. Before I could say another word, she pushed me up into a tall tree, turned around, and headed back into the cave.

"Where are you going?" I yelled after her, but she wouldn't listen to me. Instead, she walked over to the two men with the black suits.

"Shit" I said under my breath, as I realized that the branch was too high for me to jump off of, unless I wanted to break a leg. I decided to wait for my mom to come back instead of going to help her. Years from now I knew I would regret not even trying to help, but I was never good at planning ahead. Curse my small Vulpix body.

All hopes of my mom coming back to get me were soon shattered as she growled,

"Stay away from me!" those were the last words I would ever hear her say, as a second later; she lunged at the man closest to her, not seeing the Scyther that was standing in her way. She yelped as the Scyther's blade slashed her in the throat. Blood splashed on the ground, and all over the walls of the cave where I had lived in my entire life.

I groaned, and next thing I knew, the ground was rushing towards my face.

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**AN: I hope you liked the second chapter in my story. Please review, because if I don't get anyone to review it, I won't have a reason to write this story at all. Plus, I need the feedback so that I know how to make it better.**

**P.S.- The story will get better and longer as I go on, so don't leave me because of a few short chapters in the beginning…**


	3. Chapter 3 A new friend

Chapter 3- A new friend

When I finally came around, I was in a dark room filled with cages with Pokémon of all shapes and sizes in them. I couldn't even recognize most of them. I ran to help them only to find that I was in a cage also.

"You won't get out of here by running into the bars" said a voice behind me. I spun around to see a Sandshrew about two years older than I was.

"My name is Anita" she said and held out her paw. I shook it and replied,

"It's nice to meet you Anita, my name is Mina. So how did I get here? The last thing I remember I was falling out of a tree after seeing my mom-" a sob escaped my lips before I could say the last word.

"It's ok, the same thing happened to me too" She walked over to me and sat down. All of a sudden the lights went on and footsteps could be heard coming over to my (and Anita's) cage.

"Its cage seven today Frank" said one of the men in the black suits.

"Damn i!" shouted Anita, "We're cage seven!"

"What does "cage seven" mean?" I turned and asked her.

"You don't want to know" she said, as the two men reached their hands into the cage and slipped collars over our heads. We were dragged out of the room she continued by saying, "Well, you will find out anyway, so I'll just tell you now. Everyday a cage is picked and the two Pokémon in the cage are forced to fight each other."

"What? That is so wrong!" I yelled,

"Yeah, but they don't care about us all they care about is their stupid experiments." She replied shaking her head.

We were soon dragged into a small room and placed on opposite sides of a large ring. The man named Frank yelled something at Anita, but I did not here what because my head was spinning after hearing that I would have to fight my new friend. Anita ran forward barring her teeth. (If you can call those puny things teeth, she's a Sandshrew for crying out loud!) At that point I was really confused. Why was Anita attacking me? I thought we were friends! But all of my questions were answered as she came closer to me. She whispered,

"Just play along and everything will be alright." She gently bit my leg, and sensing what she was doing, I faked a yelp, and play tackled her into the ground. Just like my mom used to do. This went on for an hour or so, before we both fell to the ground laughing, but exhausted.

When we got back to our cage, I collapsed and fell asleep. I had dreams of Sandshrew in black suits holding whips. One started to chase me up a tree right before I woke up, sweating heavily. Although that may have been because of the close confinement of the room. Or the fact that I'm a fire type….

Anita was still sleeping so I walked over to her and prodded her while saying,

"Wake up sleepy head,"

"OOH FOOD!" she shouted once her eyes opened, and ran over to the pile off brown mush I had originally thought was….well….you know….

"What no hello Mina, or Good morning Mina, all you can say is OOH FOOD!" I said while doing the best impersonation of a hungry Sandshrew I could.

"Well we only get fed once a week, so you better eat up," she retorted, seemingly annoyed by the bad impersonation. Mumbling about evil humans I walked over to the second pile of mush and sniffed it. I was right. It smelled like shit. I closed my eyes and took a small nibble. Thinking that it would taste as it smelled, I gasped. It actually wasn't too bad. Suddenly I felt the eyes of everyone in the room turn on me. I looked up at Anita.

"What's wrong?" I said through a mouthful of mush,

"Uh, Mina, that's my poo you're eating." She replied, holding back a grin.

I screeched and ran to the back corner of the cage trying to get the taste out of my mouth, and cursing the evil humans that didn't clean the cage of shit like they should have. Once I calmed down I walked back over to Anita.

"I saved some food for you," she said gesturing her pile of mush.

"Thank you." I said and bent down to eat it.

"I will answer any questions you have about your new life if you have any," she said after I had finished,

"So what do you want to know?"

"Who are those two men?" I asked her,

"Oh. Those men are part of an organization called Team Rocket." she answered.

"And what does Team Rocket do?" I asked,

"Team Rocket captures, steals, and does dangerous experiments on Pokémon. The sad thing is, there are at least three other groups that do this."

"So where am I than? There were no buildings anywhere near where I live," Anita cut me off before I could finish.

"You are in one of the Team Rocket bases just outside of Goldenrod City in the Johto region." Seeing my confused look, she continued, "What region did you live in?"

"I'm pretty sure my mom told me that it was the Hoenn region, on some mountain of some sort," I paused, "I can't really remember. I didn't think that it would be important to know where I lived at the time,"

"That explains it," she said, cutting me off once again, "there are no Rocket bases in the Hoenn region. Team Rocket mainly operates in the Kanto and Johto regions."

"Ahh" I replied, "so how do you know all of this?"

"That is not important, all you need to know is that it was in my past, and I'm behind it." She sighed. "I know this is not how friends are supposed to act, but trust me. You don't need to know." She turned towards the corner of the cage saying "if you have any other questions, they can wait till morning. OK?" Two seconds later loud snores could be heard from that corner of the cage.

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**AN: so that's my third chapter, hope you liked it, it is longer than the other ones, although it's not too long, it just seemed like a good place to stop. So I hope it is more to your liking. (I know ****I**** like long chapters,)**


	4. Chapter 4 Dead partners, Broken Hearts

Chapter 4- A dead partner and a broken heart

We woke up to the cries of cage three (a Totodile and Sentret) being dragged off by Frank and his buddy. This time only one of them came back.

All of the Pokémon gasped in shock as the young Sentret was pushed into her cage with tears streaming down her cheeks.

"What happened to the Totodile that was in the cage with her?" I asked Anita, afraid of the answer she would give.

"Well, there are three possibilities that may have befallen the Totodile, although it was most likely the third, due to the poor Sentret crying hysterically." She continued, "The first is that the Rockets think that he is fit enough to join them, second, he evolved, and was put in a cage with stronger Pokémon, and the third way, is that he died."

"Oh. So which of those three happened to _your _old partner?" I asked her,

"The third." She put simply, and without much emotion.

"Ah."

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The rest of the month went smoothly. Nobody died, we ate brown mush, and luckily, we weren't picked again. As the date dawned on me, I struggled to hold back my tears. Seeing me on the verge of tears, Anita asked,

"What's wrong?"

"Today might be my birthday,"

"So?" she questioned, "you're a year older, that's it."

"So, my mom promised that she would find me a firestone on my third birthday, no matter how long it would take." I broke down sobbing. I never used to cry, in fact, I don't ever remember crying in my life before being in this cage, but the all of the recent events had broken me in two.


End file.
